


A Box Marked Ben

by DoodleBopMom



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awesome BB-8 (Star Wars), Baby Ben and Bae Ben, F/M, Finn & Rey Friendship (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning sort of, Happy Ending, I Make Up Technical Jargon, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Parent Han Solo, Rey uses her scavenger superpowers to find a plot device, The Millenium Falcon Has Seen Better Days, space is scary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodleBopMom/pseuds/DoodleBopMom
Summary: Hidden away in a smuggler's hole for years, full of recordings and trinkets that call to her, Rey finds fascinating mementos of someone else's life in a dusty little box with the name 'Ben' scratched into it.And it changes everything.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 22
Kudos: 50





	1. Into the Black

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my amazing alpha/beta reader MurderOfCrowss and Jediinthetwilight for the amazing moodboard!
> 
> I've been sitting on the plot for this story for about six months, and have been working on it way before I even started Saving Ben Solo, but resolved to finish it by the end of December. I'm not sure I'll make my self-imposed deadline, what with Christmas and work and kids and all that, but the story is almost complete so the wait won't be terribly long.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Nothing inspires a writer more than feedback!
> 
> Enjoy!

The ship was _garbage_.

It had destabilized almost as soon as they’d gotten it past Jakku's atmosphere. Alarms started blaring over each other while the freighter’s gravity generator was still trying to decide if it wanted to kick on or not, and Rey needed Finn to either pull himself together or faint and be out of the way.

In the six hours that they'd been in space, Plutt's stolen freighter had threatened to kill them no less than eighteen different ways. If it wasn't poisonous gas leaking out of the coolant tanks it was breakdowns in the radiation reflectors or the hyperdrive trying to outright _explode_. Rey had to jerk them out of hyperspeed after only fifteen minutes because as soon as the space outside the viewport started to blur a dozen different alarms started to blair. After nearly an hour of continuous, desperate attempts at trying to patch together a ship barely holding itself together _while in space_ , the alarms still hadn't all stopped.

BB-8 was making a valiant effort of rolling back and forth from one end of the ship to the other, keeping tabs on what alarms were turning on and off as Rey worked. Sometimes the artificial gravity would kick out and he would lose his traction, but it didn’t seem to slow him down a bit.

The ball droid was certainly being more helpful than Finn, who was stress-sweating and so busy panicking he couldn’t tell the difference between a magwrench and tape.

“Did you get it?” His worried voice echoed from somewhere above the grating. The alarms had gradually lessened to just two incessantly high beeps, but those were for low output from the power cells and empty water tanks, not for threat of immediate death.

“Yeah,” she breathed in relief, wiping sweat and grease from her forehead and relaxing against the steel crawl space she was currently sprawled in. An array of buttons and gages lit up the wall in front of her, casting her in dim multi-colored light. “I think I've finally got the ship to stop trying to blow up.” Rey frowned and muttered a terse _‘for now’_ under her breath.

She'd been under the floor panels of the engineering bay and fighting against sand, rust, grease, patch-work wiring—and some kind of _slime_ that all but cemented the under-panels shut. It was hard getting as deep into the ship’s underbelly, it’ll be even harder to get back out.

BB-8 chirped something in binary and rolled around the opening of the crawlspace, Rey ignored him and started the process of wriggling out of her hole. The droid whirred an angry series of beeps when the gravity weakened again, and he’d started floating. A small grappling hook shot out and anchored him to the floor grate.

“It's fine, Beebee. It isn't as high a priority as a heating system.”

Finn hooked his fingers into the floor and made a disagreeing grumble.

She was about to remind him that there was only a thin slab of durasteel between them and the negative triple digits of cold space when the lights suddenly flickered, and a bundle of exposed wiring that was just— _hanging_ _out of the wall_ behind him sparked and blew. Finn nearly jumped out of his skin. “I wish it would _stop doing that!_ ”

Rey rolled her eyes and pulled herself out of the compartment. “Yelling at it will _certainly_ help.” Finn deflated and offered her a hand to help her float out of the floor. She waved him away and gave him an annoyed look before launching herself through the air to an access panel on the far wall.

“I feel useless," he admitted, and the child-like whine in his voice softened some of her temper. "It's frustrating."

"Just," Rey sighed and shook her head, "we can't go into hyper speed for now, so look around the ship for anything we can use until we reach the nearest port. Food. Water. Blankets."

He floated in the same place for an awkward minute, before the gravity started to slowly come back again. Finn muttered something that sounded like a _‘thanks be to the Maker’_ and squatted down to start picking up the scattered tools, probably desperate for something to focus on besides how likely they were to die before they could complete his mission.

Rey almost couldn’t believe he was a member of the Resistance, he was so _jumpy_. 

The ship shuttered in an ominous and wholly terrifying way, making Finn and Rey freeze on the spot. BB gave a scared chitter, waiting to see what was gonna explode next. The engine gave a low, creaking groan that made their blood run cold. Lights flickered and just when Rey was ready to grab the tool bag and start running back towards the power core, the freighter seemed to settle again. 

No alarms started blaring and after a few tense moments, Rey let out a shaky breath and ran a trembling hand over her face, feeling the stress induced perspiration beading on her skin.

A weird, almost inhuman sound clawed its way from Finn's throat. He gave a huff of humorless laughter and shook his head. “I hate this ship. _I hate this ship!_ ”

“Well, it's better than nothing. Let’s just try to get somewhere while it’s safe.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” Finn agreed. He sighed. “You’re amazing. Is there anything you can't do?”

Rey ignored the heat crawling up her neck at his words. She’d never been praised for anything and the sudden compliments were strange and mortifying. She liked being told she was useful, but was too exhausted and stressed by the flying, crumbling brick they were in to gracefully take it.

She opted to just ignore his words all together and make a tactical retreat until she could calm down and have a conversation like a normal human. “I'm going to the ‘fresher.”

Finn nodded and followed her out of the engineering bay only until the first blast door. ‘CARGO HOLD 3’ was written on the scuffed durasteel door with bold, faded lettering. Rey didn’t slow her trek towards the crew quarters when he went inside, and she hoped he got lucky and found the supplies they needed.

The fresher was as useless as she thought it would be. It was a hydrocare system and whatever water it used for toileting or showering had been bled and sold by Unkar years ago. She glanced at a petrified sliver of soap near the sink and breathed a singl, dry laugh. She'd never seen soap before, and how fitting that it was just as dried out and dead as anything else that had suffered Jakku.

It was just as she had been thinking the day before, when she had caught herself staring at Mafga. Old, frail, dried up and alone. It's what Rey would be, too, eventually. It was her future.

Her throat tightened and she swallowed the urge to cry down like a stone.

No. _No_ . Her family _would_ come. She needed to get back to Jakku and wait like they'd asked.

Her mind went to the painful memory of watching them fly away while Unkar Plutt held her back, and another wave of hot, prickling tears burned her eyes.

Unkar.

Stars, what was she going to do about Unkar?

She stole his ship.

She _stole_ his _ship_.

Plutt always said he was a trader, but that wasn’t what he was. He was a _taker_ that bought and sold people for work and controlled whether they lived or died. He took people’s time and youth and _hope_ and crushed it, giving them only enough crumbs to stay alive and keep scavenging. Not credits, not medical supplies, not simple comforts, not passage off of the planet when charters came every month to collect the imperial scraps.

Taking this ship was the first time that someone had _taken_ from Unkar. It would make him look weak, even if the First Order was bombing Niima from the sky while it happened. He knew she took it, he wouldn't forget it, and he controlled the portions and the water she needed to survive.

Rey's heart raced in her chest as fear started clawing in her gut.

Maybe if she brought the ship back to Unkarr a little better off than when she'd taken it? Merciful R'iia, what if he refused to trade with her? She'd starve before the week was out. She couldn't wait for her parents if she were dead.

A choking tightness gripped Rey's throat. She rubbed her hands into her eyes and slid down the cabinet of the sink to sit on the durasteel floor of the 'fresher.

Or maybe Unkar would say her debt would only be forgivable if she were humiliated as he had been, and he'd trade her to slavers for a year. He'd done it to others before. He'd tried to do it to her, but her quick reflexes and heavy-hitting staff had kept her safe from them.

He'd nearly starved her after the last attempt to teach her a lesson, only giving her half-value for whatever she'd brought him for a month, before he'd finally relented. The experience had almost killed her, and she was positive that that was the only reason he ever stopped.

That was just for telling him no. Now she'd told him no when he made a show of offering her an enormous amount for the droid— _and_ stolen from him.

Rey wrapped her arms around herself and buried her face between her knees.

This was a nightmare.

* * *

BB-8 collected Rey before she was entirely calmed down, but she was grateful for him getting her out of her head. The little droid was somewhat able to pilot by the nature of his design, being an astromech—and a newer model than she’d ever seen—but still limited by his programming subroutines and mechanics, and the ship needed an actual person who knew what they were doing to man the controls.

Rey thanked BeeBee as he chirped a report of his actions while she’d taken a moment. He managed to update the ship’s navchart and input the coordinates for the closest habitable outpost, and that it would only be an eighteen hour trip at the rate they were traveling at sub-lightspeed.

She stopped briefly when she walked into the ship’s galley and saw Finn stacking boxes and crates near the table. There was a growing pile of things on the half-circle couch that had been deemed useful—a folded stack of thin blankets, more tools, a blaster rifle that looked older than both of them _combined_ and an empty canteen. Her throat tightened at the sight of it.

Rey turned to Finn, who was opening another crate. “Did you find any water?”

“No,” he nodded towards two stacked durasteel chests that looked like they were purposefully built tough enough to survive explosions. “I found some food, but we won’t be able to eat it unless we can hydrate it.”

Rey’s eyes widened and before she really registered that her body had moved, she was opening the top chest. There were _hundreds_ of portion packs crammed into every available inch of the container and her heart was suddenly in her throat. She reached in, shaking fingers glancing over the air-sealed portions with terrified reverence. There were enough portions in this chest that she wouldn’t have to scavenge for a standard _year_ if she wanted to.

It didn't matter if she went back to Jakku with a brand new ship for Plutt. She'd stolen his ship, she'd embarrassed him and… and now she'd taken his merchandise. R'iia, if she ever went back—he'd kill her.

If she could never go back, and her family came and she _wasn't there—_

BB-8 rolled next to her, the black photoreceptor of his head zooming in and out as it refocused and he beeped out a questioning chirp.

Rey shook her head and slammed the chest closed. She needed to think about Plutt _later_ and deal with the hundred and one emergencies she had with Finn and the ship _right now_ or she would go insane. “Sorry, just a moment,” she said to the little droid, and quickly stood and turned towards Finn. "Is this everything?"

He shook his head, pulling out a data pad that had a cracked screen and rusted edges. He sighed and tossed it onto the stack of folded blankets. “No, I still have two more cargo holds to go through.”

Rey shifted her weight on her feet. “Don’t just look there,” she said, looking at the metal grating of the floor. “This is a freighter that wound up on Jakku, I’d bet my left foot it was used for smuggling, and if it was—” Finn turned away from his digging to see Rey hooking her fingers into the grating. It gave way fairly quickly, and revealed a hatch. “— there will be hidden compartments everywhere.”

“Cool,” he breathed, grinning from ear to ear.

BB-8 trilled loudly at them. Ray raised her hand placatingly, opening the hatch and lowering herself by the hidden crawlspace. “Just a moment, I promise.”

Finn crouched down by her. “BeeBee, can you shine a light?”

The droid erupted into a tirade of angry beeps. His body spun around in a small circle, his photoreceptor going back and forth between both humans. 

“Yes, I’ll come soon, I promise!” Rey snapped, the droid canted himself forward and back a bit, looking as agitated as a BB unit could. He hissed something at her that was very rude, but she deigned to ignore it, saying ‘ _thank you_ ,’ when he came forward with his light on.

“Looks empty,” she muttered as she ducked her head further into the crawlspace. BeeBee rolled around the hatch to try to follow her with the light, and wasn’t polite about telling Finn to move. 

He nearly fell over, but caught himself in time. “Watch it!” 

Rey grunted and pulled a medium sized box out and onto the grating, getting Finn’s attention back. BeeBee warbled something at the same time he spoke. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Rey sighed, wiping sweat from her brow. 

Finn offered her a hand to help her back out of the hole and she took it. She crouched to look at the box and was a little surprised to see that it was made out of wood and leather. The layer of dust on it was thick enough to tell Rey that the box had been there for a long time, and didn’t belong to Plutt, or maybe even Ducain. Her eyes caught sight of some lettering that had been partially revealed from her handling.

Lifting the end of her draping, she wiped away the dust. All it said was one word. A name. “ _Ben_ ,” she tried the name on her tongue as she read it aloud. It rolled easily. The latch for the lock was a bit bent and easy to open. The box creaked loudly. It was definitely old.

Finn appeared over her shoulder, curiously looking in at the contents. “What’s in it?”

She shrugged, pushing some of the items aside. The dust hadn’t gotten inside the box. “Clothes, holodisks, a few trinkets.”

Finn grunted and stood up. “Sounds like junk to me.”

“Everything is junk to you.” Rey snarled, snapping the lid to the box closed and jumping to her feet. She tucked it under her arm almost protectively and pointed an accusing finger at him. “Since we’ve met, you’ve insulted my home, my job, and the only thing that not only saved us, but is keeping us alive while we hurtle through space to help _you_ get back to _your_ base.”

“S-sorry,” Finn sputtered the apology. His wide, shocked, child-like eyes after her tirade only made her more irritated. 

“Look around,” she ordered, gesticulating wildly to the half-sorted pile of crates from the cargo hold. “I’m heading up to the cockpit with BeeBee.”

“Rey—” Finn started, but stopped when she all but punched the door panel box to the gangplank leading to the cockpit. 

“Just find some water!”

* * *

BeeBee was warbling at her.

“I was not _mean_ to him,” she declared stiffly as she set the box into the co-pilot’s seat and strapped herself in.

He beeped at her in a lower pitch.

“I don’t care.” Rey returned, holding her nose up as she began flipping switches and putting in adjustments. She bounced her knee a few times, nearly vibrating with annoyance. She rolled her eyes and refused to look at the little orange and white droid. “Okay, you’re right, I care—I’ll apologize later.”

BeeBee made a quick, short beep that was intoned with too much sarcasm to be anything other than a droid’s binary equivalent of a _snort_.

Rey shot him a disbelieving look. He, impossibly, shot her one back. It was almost startling. She had spent an entire night and morning with the little droid on Jakku before they’d stumbled across Finn and had to escape the First Order. She never realized how—how _snarky_ he was. Just as she started to entertain the idea of investigating his programming to see how much of his intelligence was artificial or if he had some sort of complex multi-layered personality programming, his photoreceptor turned towards the box sat neatly in the chair between him and Rey. He beeped a query at her.

She blinked, and turned towards the box with a shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to bring it, I just… heat of the moment.” She offered lamely, BeeBee chirped another query and she shook her head. “Hopefully, something entertaining to help pass the time.”

The little droid rolled back and looked back again between Rey and the console. “It’s okay, go ahead and take a charge. I know you weren’t able to back on Jakku.”

BeeBee looked hesitant for a moment, canting back and forth—a habit, she realized suddenly, when he’s trying to decide what to do next, or is ‘thinking’. The little droid was endlessly fascinating. Eventually, he beeped an agreement and started to roll away. He paused at the doorway, then rolled back up to her and with a quick poke of his internal pulex driver.

“What?”

He beeped at her. Then warbled.

Rey deflated just a bit, and smiled down at the droid. “I promise I’ll call for you if I need help. Thank you.”

BeeBee rolled back from her just a bit, blinked his shutter at her, and then rolled away. Rey watched him go with a smile threatening to stretch across her features. She went to turn back towards the console but paused when her eyes fell onto the box.

She worried at her lip for a moment, before reaching to open the box again. There were a few outfits inside that looked as though they belonged to a young boy, but might fit her if she made a few adjustments. Setting those aside, she looked deeper, and was surprised to find a case of holovid record disks labeled with the same bad handwriting as the name written on the exterior of the box.

Rey opened the case and pulled the first one out, turning it over in her hand. In bold white lettering it read ‘BEN-6’ _._ She glanced to the control board and looked for the communication console, popping in the disk as soon as she found it.

The cockpit was bathed in blue light as the hologram booted up. She didn’t see much at first, then— 

_“Hey, Mom!”_

A mess of black curls too close to the recorder bounced into view. The blue glow of the holo-projection faded in and out for a second, tilted precariously to the left, where Rey could see the armrest of a familiar co-pilot's seat, and then finally settled down with the full face of an excited young boy.

His hair was a little long, just barely covering the tips of a pair of large ears. An aquiline nose that was just a bit too big for his face was turned up, and a grin full of mismatched baby and adult teeth were taking up half of the holo recording. There were a few freckles over his eye and side of his face, and his skin was light but healthy looking. The boy made a grunting sound and his face fell away after a moment, then came back up, head tilted back and smiling ear to ear.

Rey realized he was stretching on his toes, probably too short to properly reach the dash.

He was _adorable_.

_"We made it to Frueya! Dad didn't tell me there's a big festival going on and it's got giant lizards!”_ He'd practically shriked the last part in his excitement. _“I saw one almost as big as the Falcon and it even had wings! This is the best day ever!"_

He started to bounce on his toes, and a little pang clutched at her heart. This child looked as small as she had been, when she was left on Jakku. She didn't really remember her life _before_ , instead focusing on remembering her parents faces and their last words to her. Their promises that _'It will be only temporary'_ and _'We will come back_.

She wondered if she had been as happy as this boy had been when she was his age.

The boy hopped up, hooking his arm onto the console. His toothy smile was still ear to ear, and as she saw the happiness written clearly on his small face, she couldn't help but think that no, she had never been happy like he was in the recording.

" _Thanks for letting me come!_ ”

A small, deep part of her was jealous of the boy, of _'Ben'_. She wanted to feel the happiness he felt of leaving his home and traveling, of seeing giant lizards and being able to speak, even if in recorded messages, to his mother. She was jealous of how healthy and well fed he looked, how unafraid he was. She had been none of those things at six years old.

A larger, more whole part of her was curious.

She was curious about all the same things that made her jealous. Who was he? Did his father own this ship, once upon a time? She'd never seen a child smile so freely. It was infectious. She couldn't help but smile back at his paused image.

“So cute,” she murmured, and turned towards the box. There were seventeen more holodisks, all with numbers scribbled on top. The numbers started at six and stopped at twenty-two, with two eights and two thirteens—ages, she realized suddenly. 

Rey's eyes flit up to the steady, calming blue hue of the hologram. He was six in that video, If her theory was correct. A little child, really.

Her fingers tapped over the recordings. She raked her eyes over them again, and paused when they hovered over the one marked 'BEN-19'.

She was nineteen. She was curious what the little boy on the screen was like when he grew up to be her age.

She looked at the three more afterwards. He'd grown older than nineteen. It was almost a strange thought, that the little boy in the holo was older than her—and it made her wonder how old he was now. The ship was sixty years old _at least_.

Unkar’s freighter had come into his ownership after he stole it from the Irving's, and they’d bragged loudly that they stole it from Ducain. Ducain was a murderous pirate that even _she_ had heard about on her little middle-of-nowhere planet.

A tight feeling gripped in her chest as she took another long look of the features of the boy—Ben. Of his toothy, mismatched smile. Of the glitterous light in his eyes, reflecting his utter joy of the moment.

Had he died? Did Ducain and his men hurt him? Had someone else?

Was this boy alive somewhere? Maybe an old man now, or maybe middle-aged and taking his own children to festivals that had giant lizards and vesta apples. Maybe he was still happy.

Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was dead, and wasn't anything at all.

Without her even realizing she'd moved, Rey pulled 'BEN-6' from the projector and switched it with 'BEN-19'. She pressed the play button and sat up a little straighter as the dark room was once again bathed in blue light.

Oh.

_“Mother,_ "

Merciful R'iia.

Nineteen-year-old Ben was certainly _not_ a child anymore. The young man before her had a pale, long face smattered with the same array of small moles and freckles as his six-year-old self. His face was looking straight on to her, no longer too short to reach the recorder. He had certainly _grown_ —and not just in height. His shoulders were broad under a thin, pale tunic that was meant to fold closed, but hung loosely open all the way to his high waisted belt and showed a bit of his chest. A thicker brown outer robe was open and hanging around his hips, and his hands were resting on top of it in a relaxed posture. His ears and nose were still slightly large, but he’d grown into them well.

Rey looked at him, her mouth falling open in slack-jawed shock as she watched Ben tilt his head to the side and raise a thick arm, raking his fingers along a scalp of much longer, still black and curled head of hair. He had grown to be a _very_ handsome young man.

His image made a sigh that was lightly laced with irritation, and her eyes immediately focused on his mouth. He had full lips. She was staring.

" _Honestly,_ " Ben grumped. His voice was so _deep_ compared to his six-year-old self. He turned to look fully at the camera—at Rey—and she was embarrassed to feel a heat creeping up her neck to warm her face. " _You hardly had to declare a diplomatic incident just because some decrepit Empire loyalists heckled Master Luke and made a scene._ ” He scoffed, and looked away from the camera, hands falling to rest at his sides stiffly. _“With you leading the polls and Master practically walking into their_ legally assembled protest _, it’ll look more like they were goaded into lashing out.”_

Rey boggled at him, the level of bored annoyance he was radiating was almost as amusing to her as it was fascinating. She wondered who Master Luke was and what sort of apprenticeship he’d taken up as a young man. She couldn’t tell much of what he spent his days doing from how he was dressed, other than he looked quite muscular and sounded a bit more educated than the average Jakku scavenger she was used to hearing speak. She didn’t think he was any kind of slave, he looked far too healthy and his mother sounded somewhat important.

Ben puffed a breath and faced the camera again, the corner of his mouth twitched up into an almost smirk. Rey could see that his teeth had at least all grown in straight and white. She suddenly wished with all her heart to see that enormous smile his child-self wore so easily on his adult face. _“I understand that there aren’t a lot of opportunities for us to see each other, and I can appreciate that you’d be annoyed with them ruining our trip, but...I’m glad you tried, even if it didn’t work out. Hopefully the next time we try to have dinner it won’t make the headlines.”_

His hand reached up to rake through his hair again, to Rey’s delight. _“I did at least receive your gift and—thank you. The new pen set will make copying the tomes in the temple easier.”_

He seemed to stall for a moment after that, and look away from the camera again. A flash of emotion went across his expressive face, even if he seemed to almost instinctively try to hide it. Rey recognized it for what it was, and felt her heart sink.

Loneliness.

_“I miss you. I miss dad.”_ He almost whispered the words. He stayed still and quiet for another moment before reaching a hand out and ending the holo.

Rey reversed the recording. _“—tomes in the temple easier.”_ Again, Ben stalled and looked away. She hit pause as soon as the emotion painted his features.

Her hand reached out to the holo. His face was no bigger than her index finger, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to actually touch him—but still, she ran the pad of her thumb as closely to his face as she could. The image started to warble as her hand disrupted the projection lighting.

With a sigh, she lowered her hand and turned off the holoprojector.

* * *

Finn and Rey managed to rest for an entire three hours before the ship lurched.

Rey was completely thrown out of her seat and only just managed to catch herself before her leg was broken on a nearby hand-support. She was already up and reaching for the controls when he barrelled in and asked if she was okay.

BB-8 rolled hot on his heels and plugged into the dash just as soon as Rey scrambled up to see what new warnings of imminent death were flashing. The proximity alarm was going nuts and the ships deflector shields were at twenty-two percent power and dropping.

Finn's voice was low and severe, but she could still hear the fear in it. "What is it?"

She flipped a series of switches and reached to her side to pull and twist an emergency shield power lever into activation. "Microastroid cloud. They can't be picked up on radar at hyperspeed because the fragments are so small." She grunted as she stretched as tall as she could and started hitting adjustment numbers manually into the hyperdrive system board. “Or, apparently, sub-lightspeed.”

The screen blacked out and reset halfway through the sequence input. Bold red lettering flashed angrily, bathing the cockpit in red. The ship lurched again and groaned loudly as it slowed. "Bloody _compressor!_ " Rey screamed in outrage and hit the overhead computer in the ship. "It activated it's failsafe mode and locked out use of the entire faster-than-light engine system!" 

"Are you telling me we just got hit by space shrapnel and now we have to crawl to the next port?" The edge to Finn's voice was coming back with his stress sweating. "With the First Order probably following after us?"

"Yeah, and if we get hit again we'll _be_ space shrapnel." Rey sank back into her pilot's seat and gripped the arm handles like a vice. "I could maybe kick it back on after a system reboot, but it's not guaranteed that it'll work _or_ that the ship's systems will even come back online—and we could end up floating out in the middle of space with no power." She huffed an incredulous laugh and turned to Finn. "I don't even know what would kill us first—freezing, suffocating or melting from the inside out from radiation."

“Rey,” Finn started, he turned to look at her—a million emotions dancing across his face all at once. She could see one in particular winning out above all. Guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

She silently tried to swallow, but the emotions she’d been trying very hard to ignore were starting to boil back up again, and breathing itself had started to become a chore. She knew what Finn was trying to do, and while normally she would appreciate an honest apology from someone who had inconvenienced her on such a _breathtaking_ level—she absolutely didn’t want to hear it right now. Because it was too much like trying to make things right before the end, and she refused to lay down and die and wait for the First Order to get her.

He rubbed a hand over his face and turned in his chair to face her. She didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry that you got tangled up in this mess, and basically got kidnapped—”

“As I recall, I was the one who beat you up, told you to get on the ship and flew us off the planet.” A wry smile stretched across her face. “If anything, _I_ kidnapped _you_.”

Finn stared dumbly at her for a moment, his eyes wide and mouth falling open just a little—then barked a loud laugh. “You’re right!”

They laughed together for a moment, the stress and tension lessening between them just a little more. “I was rude before,” Rey picked at the handrest of her seat. “I was scared and stressed and I took it out on you and I’m sorry.”

“I'm sorry I insulted your, uh, _life_ ,” he flashed her an apologetic grin, “I’m not really used to talking to people.”

That surprised her. “Even in the resistance?”

“I haven’t been, uh, with them for very long.” He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders a bit. “Until recently— _very recently_ —I was a soldier, and,” Finn waved his hand between himself and Rey almost hesitantly, “they weren’t very big on letting people get comfortable around each other, much less make friends.”

Oh.

Rey’s shoulders slumped just the littlest bit. Now she felt extra guilty about the way she’d been snapping at him earlier.

“I’m not used to talking to people, either.” She said honestly, as a way of apology, maybe. Finn gave her a curious look and she lifted a hand to wipe sweat away from her forehead. “The last time I did, they were just distracting me so their friend could try and steal my haul.”

He stared at her. She could almost see the cogs in his brain turning as he thought over how to take her admission. Eventually he just huffed a laugh and leaned further back into the copilot’s chair. The red warning light from the hyperspeed computer was still flashing and coloring them in red.

“Well, coming from someone who’s seen the business end of your staff,” Finn’s mouth slowly stretched into a grin. If she had to describe it, she may have used the word _‘mischievous’_. “I sincerely hope you kicked their ass.” 

“I did,” she said with a smirk. It faltered when she saw his own vice-like grip on his armrests. “For what it’s worth, I know our situation hasn’t very much improved, either, and—and I know you’re scared about the First Order—but we did leave the planet at lightspeed. They can’t have followed us.” 

Finn didn’t say anything, but he did nod at her, and seemed to relax.

Rey sighed in relief. A heavy quiet stretched between them for a long time. Rey busied herself with semi-manual piloting, using her eyes and BeeBee’s continually updated short-range navigation chart to help her through the danger zone. The pulsating red light of the FTL computer flashing over them, making it impossible to relax completely.

Eventually, the silence became too much, and she cleared her throat. “Did you ever find any water?”

Finn swiveled in the chair a bit. He glanced at the control panel but knew better than to touch anything. He didn’t have the first clue of how to fly, and as impulsive as Rey suspected he was, she was grateful he restrained himself from pushing any buttons. “No, but,” he spun his chair just so he was facing her. “I think I might know where some is. You’d have to help me get it, though.”

Rey’s curiosity piqued. It must have shown on her face because Finn looked almost proud of himself as he sat up a bit straighter and continued. “Commercial freighters like this have controls for the breathing atmosphere on the ship, right? Most sentients more or less breathe oxygen but some don’t, or need adjusted gas levels.” He spun the chair again. “ _Or_ humidity.”

Her eyes darted up to an air vent and a grin spread over her face. “You’re right,” she breathed, “even if Plutt thought about it, he wouldn’t have taken the water from there, either. He was a Crolute, he would have enjoyed the wet air—Finn, you’re a genius!”

He still looked worried. “Yeah, but the life support tanks are probably near the engines or the turbines or wherever else. Rey, there’s no guarantee that there’s any radiation protection down there.”

“There is,” she said, waving a hand and dismissing his worries, “it could poison the water, so it has to be within the shell.”

“Okay,” he slapped his hands on the tops of his thighs and grinned, "can you guide me through harvesting the water?" Finn asked suddenly, surprising her with his initiative. "The droid's busy helping you fly, but I can help out, too."

He said it with such determination to prove himself better than the mess he had been earlier, it was almost cute. Rey knew she had been just as stressed as he was from their violent escape from Jakku,harsh on him from the moment they’d been thrown together, and now that the fighting had stopped and they’d had a chance to breathe and calm down, she needed to be better. 

For now, they needed to be a team and work together or they were never going to make it to the next port. She needed to give him another chance, and if he was able to find something to be optimistic about, then she could too.

"Yeah," Rey relaxed, and couldn't help the small smile that stretched over her face. "Yeah, I'll guide you."

“Let’s start over?” She asked suddenly, holding out her hand. “If I’m to pilot this thing, I should like to meet my first mate properly.”

“Sound’s only fair,” Finn chuckled, and took it without hesitation. “I’m Finn.”

She squeezed his hand and shook it firmly. “I’m Rey.”

“Well, Rey,” Finn said as he stood. His back was straight and there was a rigidity to his posture that could have only come from his time in the military. Soldier Mode, she decided to call it. “I’m ready for your instructions, whenever you want to start.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

  
  



	2. Into the Fray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Finn run into some trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who waited so patiently for this. I've added two chapters to the overall length of the story, but thats only because I've decided to split chapters 1 & 2 in half. The story is completely mapped out, I just need time to finish it, haha.
> 
> Thanks again to MurderOfCrowss for being my writing bestie. You help me be my best creative self. <3

**BEN-9**

Ben’s wild curls were combed back and styled neatly, accentuating his slightly longer face and doing well to tactfully cover his large ears. He was huddled somewhere dark this time, dressed very nicely in tailored blue and white clothes that looked like they cost a small fortune. He seemed to be crawling somewhere, and was ducking his head low to peek underneath what Rey guessed to be table cloths.

Eventually, he seemed to settle, and wasted no time in glaring at his portable holorecorder.

_"Dad, this is the worst."_

Rey couldn’t help the smile that stretched over her teeth. This is the first time she’d seen him upset and she couldn’t help but see it as anything other than cute. She took a bite out of her second polystarch loaf and turned idly in the pilot’s seat, watching the nine-year-old on the holo before her grumble as he struggled to get comfortable with the stuffy clothes he was wearing.

Finn had gone above and beyond and successfully harvested five gallons of water from the life support system. It had taken painstaking hours to drain the lines, but he did it with gusto and without a single complaint. The air dried out fairly quickly afterwards but dry sinuses were a small price to pay for a full belly of rations. Even though they had a stale taste, it was more than enough for them to survive on until they reached a port. Six hours down, two-hundred and one left to go.

They had time. Rey spent hers mostly in the cockpit, piloting. BeeBee rolled about between checking in on his human escorts and doing his best to repair some of the damage to the exterior of the ship. He was a miracle worker for an astromech, doing his best even though he was too new of a model to be completely compatible with any of the garbage freighter’s manual hardware.

Finn decided to keep himself busy by making an itinerary of everything on the ship and continuing to sort through whatever he found in the cargo holds and growing number of smuggler holes, bringing her anything she might need or find useful.

Nothing he’d come across, however, was quite as interesting as the simple box she’d found under the grating. Her box marked ‘Ben’.

Rey reached inside of it as the holo continued to play, she found it interesting that he seemed to be grouching at his father for once—usually his messages were addressed to his mother. _"You tricked me into going to this stupid stuffy party with mom, and that’s bad enough—but Threepio keeps introducing me as ‘Prince Ben’ and mom gave up telling him to stop a hundred years ago,”_ he looked both furious and ready to cry at the same time, _“people are bowing at me. It's weird.”_

Rey struggled not to laugh at his plight. _Prince Ben?_ What in R’iia’s name did his mother do for a living?

She finished her polystarch loaf with a large bite and dug into the box, pulling out a handful of little trinkets to inspect. There were a few small black—she didn’t know what to call them, pucks? They were wrapped in dirty linen and left dark smears on her fingers whenever she touched them. There was a trey with a tiny bowl attached to it, and it was stained dark. She turned it over in her hand, at a loss for what it could be.

Suddenly another voice came up on the feed—eloquent and anxious. She glanced to the holo to see the camera of the recorder zoomed in closely to his face. He was clutching it near to his chest, she reckoned. Ben bent forward slowly, taking care to keep himself hidden as he peeked out under the tablecloths hiding him. His eyes were so clear..

She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a shade of brown before.

 _“Young Master!”_ The voice called, and Rey could hear the tell-tal ring in the vocoder that said it was a droid speaking. _“Oh, dear me, where has the young prince gone?”_

Ben was still looking out beyond the tablecloth. _“It’s Threepio,”_ he whispered offhandedly to the camera, to his father.

 _“Young Master!”_ Rey could vaguely hear the sound of metal feet stepping closer. _“Oh, whatever will I tell the princess? They’ll disassemble me for sure this time.”_

Rey and Ben both snorted at the same time. She blinked in surprise.

Ben was silent for another minute, tensing up and holding a hand over his mouth when a plated pair of golden feet stepped quickly passed the tablecloth hiding Ben.

He peeked again, to make sure the coast was clear, and turned back towards the recorder, still glaring. _“Please come get me, Dad,”_ the boy begged, _“I hate it here.”_

_“There you are!”_

Ben cursed just as the tablecloth was pulled back, and Rey the recorder must have fallen to the floor.the holo showed only the underside of the table while nine-year-old Ben and the droid started in on eachother. _“Why are you hiding under the table? It is not polite for a young prince to—”_

 _“Stop calling me a prince!”_ Ben roared. Rey winced and leaned back from the console. _“And stop following me you brass bucket brain!”_

The droid gasped. She could actually hear the offense in its voice. _“Well, I never—how rude!”_

Rey couldn’t help but laugh when Ben kicked at the droid and snatched up his recorder. She could see his toothy grin starting to come back as he ran off again, and the holo suddenly ended.

She scoffed at Ben’s antics.

What a brat.

* * *

It had taken a while, but Rey had managed to teach Finn the absolute basics of flying a ship so that as long as they didn’t run across another asteroid cloud or magnetic field, or anything didn’t just drop out of hyperspace right on top of them, BB-8 could help steer the garbage-freighter and she could slink off and sleep for a few hours. 

She’d ended up getting about six hours, which was more than she thought she’d get, and when she’d gone back into the cockpit to take over, Finn was happy to announce that BeeBee had more or less taken over the piloting and Rey had to take a moment to process that thought because it didn't make any sense.

"What."

Finn shrugged and gestured to BeeBee. "He plugged in, beeped something and I guess the ship likes him because its like it calmed down. Some alarms stopped and this whole thing," he gestured to the command console, "isn't flashing so much."

Rey stared at him. She must have slept harder than she thought because she still wasn't computing what he was saying.

"He's an _astromech_."

Finn nodded. "Yeah."

Rey narrowed her eyes at him. "An astromech isn't a pilot."

Finn shrugged and gestured to BeeBee. "Maybe he's got extra programming."

An astromech was a repair droid, first and foremost, able to operate in a space environment and act as a separate navigation computer in a starcraft. It could help set charters and _kind of_ steer a ship through autopilot by constantly setting a course and updating it in real time—which required a lot of processing power that most repair droids just didn't have.

And yet, sure enough, Rey was looking BeeBee just that. Her eyes danced over the sight of the little ball droid hooked into the dash, somehow actively steering the freighter and wondered briefly if she’d not actually woken up, and this was a strangely surreal dream.

She stepped up to BeeBee with saucer-sized eyes. His photoreceptor spun around and zoomed in on her, before turning back to face forward.

“How are you doing this?” Rey asked, gesturing towards the console.

BeeBee beeped a long sequence in binary, warbled once, yipped and then beeped some more.

Rey’s jaw dropped. “You did _what_?!”

Finn looked between them. “What?”

Rey scoffed in disbelief and turned her head to Finn, now fully awake. “When he went in for another navigation system sync he was able to install some of his own software over the system’s programming and,” she looked down at the little droid, flabbergasted. “He did a rolling system recode. He updated and replaced the—so he could—he wasn’t compatible with the ship so he made the ship compatible with _him_.”

BeeBee beeped happily.

Finn wheezed a breath. “Can droids _do_ that?”

She shook her head and sank into a seat behind the little ball unit. “They’re not supposed to, I mean,” she started, and held up her hands helplessly. “He’s an _astromech_.”

“He’s _scary_ , is what he is.” Finn muttered, and stood. “You taking over?”

Rey nodded. “Yeah. BeeBee still has some more work he could do outside if he feels up to it.”

BeeBee warbled and detached himself from the console. A grappling hook shot out to a nearby handrail and he used it to pull himself off of the seat safely. Rey quickly slid up into the vacated chair and strapped herself in.

Her box was still tucked into the corner of the cockpit, right where she left it.

“If you can,” she said, flipping a series of switches and rechecking the gauges. She had no idea what BeeBee did while she was asleep but some of the pressure gauges were indeed telling her better numbers than just a few hours earlier.

“I think I’ll catch a nap if I can,” Finn announced with a stretch. “Who knows how long this smooth sailing will last.”

"Sounds good," Rey said with a puff of breath and waved him off. She looked at every gague and meter on the console, trying to figure out what magic the little droid used.

* * *

**BEN-10**

The holo came alive to an absolutely furious Ben.

He was wearing clothes similar to that in the BEN-19 recording, but was wrapped up more warmly with extra layers and a scarf. His hair looked more wild than she’d ever seen it, and his face was red and blotchy from anger or tears or both. Rey immediately dumped the trinket she’d been inspecting back into the box and turned to face the holo with a frown.

 _“I hate you,”_ he seethed, _“I hate all of you.”_

Rey sat up quickly and focused on Ben, her heart clutching tightly in—she didn't know what. Anxiety? Fear? What happened. Her heart broke to see him like this. Even when he was grousing at his father for leaving him to a party he didn’t want to attend, there was a good-natured light in his eyes. He had been irritated, not angry.

For the moment—or, once, she supposed, however long ago, when Ben was only a ten-year-old little boy, that light had gone from his eyes. The holo recorded a moment in his life when he was nothing but pain and anger and it—it _bothered_ her.

It was easy to sit back and watch the videos of his life and stay detached, as curious as she was about him, because he was just a boy in a holo who seemed to live such an easy, close-to-perfect-life as she could imagine—but this, this was…

Ben’s lower lip quivered, and he seemed to step back from the recorder, as though he’d nearly lost balance. His shoulders began to shake, and Rey’s chest clutched in sympathy for him.

His voice came broken when he spoke, low and irregularly pitched with the onset of puberty and uncontrollable emotion. _“How could you just leave me here?”_ Ben asked, unable to lift his head to the recorder. His gloved fists were balled at his sides, trembling. He was sobbing now, and his breath hitched as he continued his tirade. _“I-I'll never,”_ he sniffed and wailed, _“I’ll never forgive you!"_

She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. A heavy stone settled in her heart. She didn't like seeing him this way.

Abandoned.

Rey didn’t like seeing him hurting. It was too familiar of a pain for her to see on someone else—especially someone that she had seen so happy before. 

It was familiar in a way that didn’t sit easily with her. It humanized Ben in that moment entirely too much, and whether she wanted it or not, she felt a sort of kinship with the little angry boy. She’d struggled to maintain hope in the early days after she’d been left on Jakku—and she had been furious. Her anger had made her insolent and not listen to Plutt, and only a harsh beating and the threat of starving to death had gotten her to calm down and put her focus on staying alive till the next day. It was easy to stay hopeful when she was too busy to think too much of _why_ she had been left, or under what circumstances, and instead just stay optimistic and wait for her parents to come back because they _said_ they would.

...but that didn’t mean that there weren’t nights. Usually when R’it's wind howled, and she’d been locked in her AT-AT for days with nothing but herself and her fear that she’d let herself think about _why_.

_"You’re all liars!”_

Rey sighed. Thinking about ‘ _why_ ’ always made her angry. Why her? Why Jakku? Why not come back? Why take so long? Why not send her a message? Why, why, why?

She could see that Ben may have been left with just as little explanation from his parents as she got from hers.

The holo clicked off when the boy reached forward and threw his recorder. The cockpit fell into darkness once again and Rey leaned back into her seat slowly.

His parents...had left him behind.

They'd given him to a Master and he had very little say in the matter.

He was angry, and she knew that anger.

_"I miss you. I miss dad."_

She knew that loneliness.

She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. "Oh, Ben..."

* * *

Rey lazily twisted left in the pilot’s seat, staring ahead at the open, empty space beyond the viewport. The stars outside weren’t blurs of light flashing by, but rather a slow-moving night sky that stretched on endlessly, moving only just enough to be noticeable by the naked eye as the ship sailed the vast empty space between star systems.

She twisted right, and her eyes flitted down to the closed box that she’d tucked away into the corner of the cockpit.

Rey had needed to take a break from the holos after the last one. She didn't know what had gotten into her, but she felt off ever since she’d seen the last recording. The red light from the FTL error alarm washed over her in a steady slow pulse, thankfully muted after BeeBee’s tinkering. The silence was now deafening in the cockpit, making her efforts to not think about her box and Ben nearly impossible. 

_“How could you just leave me here?”_

What she had seen had upset her a lot, and she told herself she was going to set the box and all its contents aside for at least twenty hours, if she ever picked it back up at all. The holos were supposed to be a means of _entertainment_ to help her get through the mundanity of piloting the dying freighter to Resistance territory, not stress her out even more.

Still.

Rey bounced her knees to the point of nearly vibrating before throwing all pretense that she had any self control to the wind and reached for the box. The case of holo disks sat at the top of the contents, practically jumping out at her. She pulled out the next holo, **BEN-11** , and slid it into the projection console. Rey hit the play button and quickly leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms.

She just wanted to see that he was okay.

She wasn’t going to stop thinking about Ben and the pain she’d seen until she saw that he had adjusted well enough to his circumstances and was—well— _okay_. She saw the video of him when he was nineteen. He was lonely when he was older, yes, but also healthy and seemed to be well educated—and still speaking to his parents, if these recorded messages were anything to go by. He hadn’t been left alone with nothing like she had.

The projection booted up and bathed the cockpit blue. Ben, now with hair grown to his shoulders and dressed in the same style of linen robes he wore in the last video sat at a table, resting his chin on his crossed arms. The pulsating error light cast the recording in a purple contrast that did nothing to lighten the immediate sombre mood of the video.

 _“Hey, mom,”_ Ben started with his usual greeting. He didn’t bother to lift his head as he spoke. 

_“The mission to the lost outpost with Mr. Tekka was a success, but…”_

Rey lazily swiveled her chair to the right, staring at the subdued boy with a critical eye. His expression was unreadable, which was new. She didn’t like it.

 _“There were these people that showed up, and they tried to fight Master Luke. Their boss was this guy with a helmet, he said his name was Ren.”_ Ben’s fingers started tapping against the table listlessly. He was quiet for a long stretch of time—stalling—before laying his hand flat. _“His skin looked like it was rotting from the inside out, like he should have been dead, but he held his own against Master Luke and...”_

He was very obviously not looking at the camera. Rey swiveled left.

_“...he said that I had a shadow inside of me, like him.”_

Rey stopped her chair.

_“Master Luke said that there are two sides to everything, like good and evil and night and day. He said that for people like us, it’s different, and that we have to learn how to control the light inside of us, or the darkness will grow, and…”_

Ben folded his hands under his elbows, curling in on himself a little more.

_“Is that why you left me here? Because you could feel my shadow?”_

Rey snarled in frustration and ejected the disk.

* * *

The ship shuttered before the proximity alarm even started going off, and Rey was at the point that she would like to just blow the entire garbage-death-freighter up than deal with it anymore.

Finn ran into the cockpit in full Soldier Mode, stone-faced and ready for action. “What’s going on?”

“We’re being pulled in by a tractor beam.” Rey said, pulling herself out of the pilot’s seat and half-crawling up onto the dash. A shadow passed over the viewport, and she stretched to see what it was that had grabbed them. She couldn’t make out much other than it was huge. “Someone’s trying to capture us—” Rey’s foot slipped, and she caught herself by reaching out and catching Finn’s head.

He grunted and shoved her hand off. “Is it the First Order?”

“I don’t think so,” Rey said, practically standing on the navigation computer, “but that doesn’t mean they’re friendly—they could be pirates or slavers.”

Finn let out a breath and looked around, but paused when his eyes fell onto the gangway leading out to the rest of the ship. “Hey, those problems we had earlier,” he said suddenly, turning back to face her, “the gravity or the poison gas—do you think you can _un_ fix them?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Rey said as she scrambled back down to the floor. She and Finn wasted no time rushing down into the galley of the ship. She headed left for the engineering bay while he turned towards his small mountain of half-sorted things he’d found.

The efficiency and ease in the way he grabbed and equipped two knives, an electro-net and the blaster made Rey still. He was gearing up for a fight. Apprehension shot through her like bolt of lightning, and the realization that they were in danger, and that Finn and her might get hurt or worse if this didn’t go well, and R’iia, how could it possibly go well—

“Rey,” Finn’s voice cut through her thoughts with laser precision. It grounded her back into reality.

“What are you going to do?”

Finn primed the blaster. “Hopefully, just talk.”

Rey turned to run and the lights kicked off after only three steps. A loud knocking sound reverberated throughout the ship from the outer hull, amplified by the darkness. Finn reached out for Rey, clapping a hand on her shoulder.

There was a slight tremble in his touch, but it didn’t reach his voice. “Hide.”

The lights started to flicker back on. She gripped her staff so tightly her knuckles turned white. “I'm not running, I can _help_ you—” 

There was a loud hissing sound as the air within the ship started to depressurize. Finn squeezed her shoulder and let her go. “Rey, I can’t fly this thing,” he said sharply, “if I can distract them, get them back off the ship, maybe you can get into the cockpit and make a run for it—”

BeeBee warbled loudly by his feet, rolling back and ramming into him just enough to voice his opinion on the ex-soldier’s plan.

“We have no idea who’s out there," she shouted "I can’t just leave you to them! They could—Finn, they could kill you.”

Finn stepped back, crouched and slid his fingers into the grating of the floor. One quick pull and the hidden hatch opened up. “Rey, I'm not going to argue with you—”

"Then don't," Rey crouched down next to him, looking him in the eye. “Finn, please—”

“We don’t have time, Rey.” The door to the ship opened with a loud hiss, and Rey could hear muffled, distant voices. Finn waved his hands quickly. “ _Hurry_.”

BeeBee warbled and threw a grappling hook, his photoreceptor swiveling around to face Rey as he lowered himself down.

“I just started to get used to having a friend,” Rey said tightly as she followed after the droid and lowered herself down, “so don’t get killed, yeah?”

Finn gave her a nervous huff of laughter. “I’m just gonna talk to them.”

Rey gave an unconvinced look as she lowered down completely and backed herself into a dark cranny. Finn set the grating and stood, backing away almost completely out of her field of vision.

BeeBee beeped quietly. Even he sounded nervous.

“He’s going to be okay,” she whispered, hoping it was true.

The footsteps coming up the rampway hit grating, and turned straight towards the galley. Rey gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth.

There was a voice she didn’t recognize from somewhere behind her. It sounded male and human. There was a raspy cadence to it that gave her the impression that it’s owner was older. “Chewie, we’re home.”

She listened and looked up as best she could as heavy footsteps grew closer. Finn stepped back, hand firmly clutched around the hilt of the blaster. It was aimed to the floor, away from her. Whoever boarded their ship must have seen him, because they stopped.

"Hey kid, put it away.”

Finn’s voice was firm, hard, and fearless. Nothing like the panicky mess she’d met a few days ago. “I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Where did you get this ship?” The stranger asked him, stepping forward a bit. “Ducain?”

“I stole it from Jakku. I don’t know who from.”

Rey heard some sort of growl coming from the rampway. Then the man spoke again, he sounded irritated. Rey didn’t like that. Irritated was too close to angry, and angry got people dead. “I told you we should have checked the western reaches.” The man sighed and walked around the galley, not closer towards Finn, thankfully. “Where’s the pilot? Where’s the crew?”

Finn shifted his feet, keeping his eyes firmly on the talker. “It’s just me.”

Whatever growled earlier let out a roar. Rey nearly jumped out of her skin and quickly held a hand over BeeBee’s receptor, waving for him to stop before he did anything to give away their position. “Now, ya see,” the man sighed, sounding tired and lofty at the same time, “my friend here, he doesn’t like liars. They make him angry. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an angry wookie, but I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, eh?”

_Wookie?_

“There’s nobody else."

“They like to rip limbs right off,” the man tutted, “I’ve seen him do it.”

Finn raised his voice. Rey could hear the edge of desperation in it. “I’m telling you, it’s just me.”

Another set of footsteps hit the grating like asteroids in the sand. Whatever was making them was heavy and angry and roaring. Finn’s blaster was up and aiming at whatever beast the man had brought onto the garbage-freighter.

The man sighed and stepped closer. “Look, _kid_ , whoever you’re hiding, they’re not worth bleeding out from a traumatic sudden amputation.”

Rey’s heart hammered in her ears. She shifted her weight slightly, craning her neck to try and see the man’s face. All she could see was a pale-skinned hand waving as he spoke. “Don’t make me have to clean blood out of my ship. It takes forever and it leaves a smell.”

Finn scoffed. “ _Your_ ship?”

“Yeah, _my ship_.” The man snarled, and stepped forward. His face came into full view then. Older, harried. “I’m Han Solo, and this is the _Millenium Falcon_.”

Rey blinked. Of all the possible things she’d thought she’d hear out of their captor’s mouth, that wasn’t it.

“Han Solo—the _war hero_?” Finn was understandably incredulous. Rey turned her eyes towards her friend, nervous for him as he seemed to look back and forth between the two strangers. “You fought in the rebellion against the Empire?”

The man grunted. “Don’t sound so impressed.”

Finn followed after him. “You’re a legend!” 

“I’m _impatient_.” The man—Han Solo—snapped. “Get your friends. Now.”

“Sir, if you’re with the Resistance—” Finn started, holstering his blaster. “I have a droid that needs to get back home, it has a map—”

The smuggler huffed an annoyed laugh and turned towards Finn, cutting him off. “Look,” Han shook his head and pointed his thumb at himself. “I’m not in the hero business anymore.”

That seemed to give Finn pause. Rey slid back into the shadow of her hiding spot when the wookie—Chewbacca, if she remembered the legends right—started moving further into the galley. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his massive, heavy feet as he slowly made his way towards the central control terminal. She shifted again, slowly, trying to see if she could get a look at what he was doing.

“A village was _massacred_ over this map,” Finn’s voice cut in sharply. “A man was tortured and died to make sure that the First Order didn’t get their hands on it. A _good_ man. Please, if you’re really Han Solo,” Rey strained her neck, trying to see her friend. She could hear the pleading in his voice. “...don’t let their deaths be for nothing.”

BeeBee wobbled sadly next to her, she patted him empathetically. Finn must have been speaking of the little droid's Master, Poe.

The old man sounded tired. “What’s so special about this map?”

As soon as the words left Han's mouth a shadow fell over Rey.

She gasped and looked up, scrambling back into the hidden compartment. It was too late, though, and the giant mass of fur and teeth she saw—the wookie—roared at her. She screamed, and the grating was ripped away. Finn yelled and she wasn’t sure if he fired off a warning shot or not because an arm the size of a _happabore_ reached in and grabbed at her. She yelped, scrambling back away as much as she could and kicking as hard as she could at the invading limb. BeeBee squalled and warbled a rapid-fire threat that sounded like gibberish to her, and unleashed an electro shock and his internal torch onto the furred arm.

The wookie roared again, snatching his arm back. Finn and Han were yelling at each other and Rey couldn’t hear anything that they were saying because she was struggling to breathe through her panic and the only thing she could hear with any clarity was the sound of her heart pounding in her chest.

Then Han Solo was leaning over the grating and glaring at her. “Who the hell—you hurt Chewie,” he accused, sounding like he couldn’t believe what he was even saying. “I ought to let him at you—”

“ _Hey_!” Finn’s hand hovered over his blaster in warning.

Han Solo scoffed. “You better keep your pea-shooter right where it’s at, because if you pull that thing again, you won’t have Chewie to worry about, you’ll have to deal with me!”

Chewie snarled, picked up a full-sized storage crate from Finn’s earlier pile and threw it clear across the galley. BeeBee let out a shrill noise. 

Han’s head spun around. “What did you just say?”

Rey clutched her staff tightly, more as a security blanket than with any intent to use it. Against something like a wookie, she imagined it wouldn’t be any better than throwing a rock at a lightning storm. She swallowed and tried to speak over her fear. “He said he has a map to Luke Skywalker.”

That caused a reaction. Han jerked back up into a standing position like he’d been slapped. “To Luke?”

Finn helped her climb out and as soon as she was standing on the floor he maneuvered himself between her and the still angry wookie. Han had turned towards his partner and talked to him, giving the massive creature’s arm a once over before giving him a pat on the back and stepping away. She was quick to put distance between herself and the absolute unit of a creature currently snarling on the other side of the room. Han had no such fear and walked right over towards his partner, inspected the laughable injuries to his arm and gave him a pat and a huffed ‘you’ll live’.

Rey glanced between Finn and Han. “I thought the Jedi were all myths and legends?”

“Yeah, believe me, I wish,” Han scoffed, putting his hands on his hips. “Chewie, get them set up in a pod, we’ll drop all three of them at the next inhabited planet.”

BeeBee let out a rapidfire tirade in binary, sharply protesting.

Finn shouted in outrage. “What—no! You can’t just—”

Rey reached out and put a hand on Finn’s arm. Han shot her friend a withered look that all but said his patience was at an end. “If you’re the Han Solo that fought in the rebellion,” she started, giving Finn and BeeBee a look that told them to calm down and shut up, “then you knew Luke Skywalker?”

Han turned away from them with a scoff. 

“He was your friend, wasn’t he?” She pressed. “Don’t you want to find him?”

“Let me tell you two something, because this hero worship thing, it isn’t cute.” The legendary smuggler growled, turning towards them. His face was twisted in barely contained rage. “Don’t believe everything you hear from the stories. Luke destroyed a Death Star, sure, and he helped bring down the Empire, okay.”

Han raised a hand and pointed a finger at them. “He also destroyed his own family, and because of him—” Chewbacca said something to Han quickly, his voice transforming from that of an angry animal to speaking a language made of soft growls and bays. Han waved him off almost as soon as he started, and continued to focus his fury on them. “He’s hurt a lot of people, and instead of facing up to it, he ran and hid. So stop breathing his name like he’s the Maker reborn, or I’ll throw you out the hangar _myself_. Got it?”

They both stood as still as statues, shocked by the man’s outburst. Even BeeBee rolled back a bit. “Yes, sir.”

Han sighed angrily and turned away from them, doing a double-take at the mass of supplies Finn had carried out as though he had only just then noticed it—when a loud, distant howl could be heard from somewhere outside of the ship. It echoed and morphed, raising in pitch to a shriek and sending a cold shiver through Rey’s blood.

Han groaned in agitation and was already heading back towards the exit ramp, Chewbacca hot on his heels. “Damn, don’t tell me one of the rathtars got loose.”

Rey let out a shaking breath and lifted a hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, her hand was trembling. She turned to Finn, having noticed with growing anxiety that the moment he heard the sound, all his bravery seemed to melt away, and he was once again looking like the man she’d met on Jakku— _fearful_.

“What’s a rathtar?”


End file.
